Seething with rage and frustration at the success of the war in Iraq, liberals have started in with their female taunting about weapons of mass destruction. The way they carry on, you would think they had caught the Bush administration in some shocking mendacity. (You know how the left hates a liar.)

For the sake of their tiresome argument, let's stipulate that we will find no weapons of mass destruction  or, to be accurate, no more weapons of mass destruction. Perhaps Hussein was using the three trucks capable of assembling poison gases to sell ice cream under some heretofore undisclosed U.N. "Oil For Popsicles" program.

Should we apologize and return the country to Saddam Hussein and his winsome sons? Should we have him on "Designer's Challenge" to put his palaces back in all their '80s Vegas splendor? Or maybe Uday and Qusay could spruce up each other's rape rooms on a very special episode of "Trading Spaces"? What is liberals' point?

No one cares.

In fact, the question was never whether Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. We know he had weapons of mass destruction. He used weapons of mass destruction against the Kurds, against the Iranians and against his own people.

The United Nations weapons inspectors repeatedly found Saddam's weapons of mass destruction in Iraq after the 1991 Gulf War, right up until Saddam threw them out in 1998. Justifying his impeachment-day bombing, Clinton cited the Iraqi regime's "nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs." (Indeed, this constitutes the only evidence that Saddam didn't have weapons of mass destruction: Bill Clinton said he did.)

Liberals are now pretending that their position all along was that Saddam had secretly disarmed in the last few years without telling anyone. This would finally explain the devilish question of why Saddam thwarted inspectors every inch of the way for 12 years, issued phony reports to the U.N., and wouldn't allow flyovers or unannounced inspections: It was because he had nothing to hide!

But that wasn't liberals' position.

Liberals also have to pretend that the only justification for war given by the Bush administration was that Iraq was knee-deep in nukes, anthrax, biological weapons and chemical weapons  so much so, that even Hans Blix couldn't help but notice them.

But that wasn't the Bush administration's position.

Rather, it was that there were lots of reasons to get rid of Saddam Hussein and none to keep him. When President Bush gave the Hussein regime 48 hours' notice to quit Iraq, he said: "(A)ll the decades of deceit and cruelty have now reached an end." He said there would be "no more wars of aggression against your neighbors, no more poison factories, no more executions of dissidents, no more torture chambers and rape rooms. The tyrant will soon be gone. The day of your liberation is near."

Liberals kept saying that's too many reasons. The New York Times' leading hysteric, Frank Rich, complained: "We know Saddam Hussein is a thug and we want him gone. But the administration has never stuck to a single story in arguing the case for urgent pre-emptive action now." Since liberals never print retractions, they can say anything. What they said in the past is never admissible.

Contrary to their current self-advertisements, it was liberals who were citing Saddam's weapons of mass destruction  and with gusto  in order to argue against war with Iraq. They said America would suffer retaliatory strikes, there would be mass casualties, Israel would be nuked, our troops would be hit with Saddam's chemical weapons, it would be a Vietnam quagmire.

They said "all" we needed to do was disarm him. This would have required a military occupation of Iraq and a systematic inspection of the 1,000 or so known Iraqi weapons sites without interference from the Hussein regime. In other words, pretty much what we're doing right now.

Remember? That's why liberals were so smitten with the idea of relying on U.N. weapons inspectors. As their title indicates, "weapons inspectors" inspect weapons. They don't stop torture, abolish rape rooms, feed the people, topple Saddam's statues or impose democracy.

In January this year, The New York Times' Nicholas Kristof cited the sort of dismal CIA report that always turns up in the hands of New York Times reporters, warning that Saddam might order attacks with weapons of mass destruction as "his last chance to exact vengeance by taking a large number of victims with him." He said he opposed invading Iraq as a pure matter of the "costs and benefits" of an invasion, concluding we should not invade because there was "clearly a significant risk" that it would make America less safe.

In his native tongue, weaselese, Kristof claimed he would be gung-ho for war if only he were convinced we could "oust Saddam with minimal casualties and quickly establish a democratic Iraq." We've done that, and now he's blaming the Bush administration for his own idiotic predictions of disaster. Somehow, that's Bush's fault, too. Kristof says Bush manipulated evidence of weapons of mass destruction  an act of duplicity he calls "just as alarming" as a dictator who has weapons of mass destruction.

If Americans were lied to, they were lied to by liberals who warned we would be annihilated if we attacked Iraq. The left's leading intellectual light, Janeane Garofalo, was featured in an anti-war commercial before the war, saying: "If we invade Iraq, there's a United Nations estimate that says, 'There will be up to a half a million people killed or wounded.'" Now they're testy because they fear Saddam may never have had even a sporting chance to unleash dastardly weapons against Americans.

The burden of proof was on Iraq. Iraq had to prove it did not have any banned WMD, we didn't have to prove they had them. All Iraq had to do was to allow inspectors to move freely around the country inspecting any facilities they wanted to at any time. Saddam did not let these types of inspections to occur as required by the cease fire agreement signed by both the US and Iraq at Saffwan in 1991.

I care. My government lied to me about the Gulf of Tonkin about what happened with the U.S.S. Maddox and C. Turner Joy. Robert McNamara's book nearly broke my heart because it confirmed my worst fears: that my friends died for a cause our leaders had effectively abandoned.

I also care because it is a threat to the President. It is a potentially powerful political issue. I care because of what has happened to Tony Blairs approval rating. I care because Senate hearings are going to be held and will magnify the issue. I care because the whole question of WMD is laden with potential political trouble.

The burden of proof was on Iraq. Iraq had to prove it did not have any banned WMD, we didn't have to prove they had them.

Correct.

I think a huge stumbling block in the debate over this WMD issue is that there are really two separate issues involved, and they become confused and conflated in peoples' minds.

One issue is this: Did Saddam's regime actually have any WMD programs? (And if so, what kind? how far along? how dangerous to us? etc.) This and all follow-up questions were important in the domestic debate over whether the U.S. should go to war. But that debate involved other stuff too. And the verdict, as delivered by Congress's War Powers resolution, was "let's not take any chances".

A different issue was: Was Saddam in violation of U.N. Resolution #XYZ? (1441, whatever). This is a different question. The reason we cared about the answer to this question was not because "this was our case for war". It was because it was our case for convincing the UN to pass a resolution endorsing war, and (most importantly) getting Britain in on the act. See, we (the U.S.) had already decided on going to war, and not necessarily for all the same reasons we gave to the U.N. (because after all the UN has no interest in protecting US national security, per se). The UN/WMD/resolution stuff was all about having Britain and anyone else we could get, join us in the war we'd already deciding on waging.

Now, as per the second issue, it was already settled long ago. The answer was Yes, Saddam was in violation of (oh, let's say) U.N. Resolution 1441. For example, Blix found an unmanned aircraft which hadn't been declared by Saddam. BOOM. Violation. For another example, Colin Powell played a tape of Iraqi military discussing how to hide such-and-such from inspectors. BOOM. Violation. (No hiding stuff! Full cooperation! Duh.) Case closed. Resolved: Saddam was in violation, and according to the terms of 1441, force was called for at that point. Nothing more to discuss.

The problem now is, when people hear the second point (yes Saddam was in violation of U.N. resolutions), they try to backtrack and re-argue the first issue (whether Saddam had WMD, whether they were "really" dangerous to us, or dangerous "enough" to justify invasion), as if that hadn't already been settled by Congress, last year.

For example, they will no doubt say "but a drone? Who cares about a drone, if he didn't have chemicals to put on it." With respect to the U.N. resolution issue (drones were a no-no), it DOESN'T MATTER! Or they will say "you say they're bio-labs but how do we know it was used for bio-weapons?" DOESN'T MATTER!

Even if no WMD stocks are found, ever, that doesn't mean Saddam obeyed Resolution 1441. And, with respect to the issue of U.N. resolutions, that's all that counts.

For example, they will no doubt say "but a drone? Who cares about a drone, if he didn't have chemicals to put on it." With respect to the U.N. resolution issue (drones were a no-no), it DOESN'T MATTER! Or they will say "you say they're bio-labs but how do we know it was used for bio-weapons?" DOESN'T MATTER!

I bet the chemical weapons manufacturing was integrated into the Iraqi refineries. They didn't have to maintain stockpiles, but just reconfigure portions of their refineries when they wanted to produce them.

Also, we did find mobile biological labs but without any pathogens. The seed stock for the pathogens could have been stored in a small refrigerator anywhere. The labs would never be contaminiated with traces of pathogens till they would be actually used to make biological weapons.

Also, I suspect all the technical documents produced by the WMD program could easily have been converted to PDF files and burned onto CDs or DVDs. The original paper documents could be destroyed, while the digital documents would be rather easy to hide.

"Should we apologize and return the country to Saddam Hussein and his winsome sons? Should we have him on "Designer's Challenge" to put his palaces back in all their '80s Vegas splendor? Or maybe Uday and Qusay could spruce up each other's rape rooms on a very special episode of "Trading Spaces"? What is liberals' point?"

As a liberal, I care a great deal. But the problem is even greater than not being able to find WMD. Bush and his army have, not only been unable to find weapons of mass destruction, they have been unable to find Saddam Hussein.

Us liberals believe that since the weapons haven't been found, THEY NEVER EXISTED. The logic is flawless!! Since Saddam has not been found, HE NEVER EXISTED. So, Bush has lied to us for years about the existance of Saddam. Us liberals have caught the government in yet another tricky spot. I've asked Waxman to write a letter demanding that the administration release documents proving that Saddam actually ever existed. We have to get to the bottom of this.

I care. I want to know where the d*mn things are. I don't doubt he had them. I want to know who has them now.

I'd also like to know if our intelligence capability is so poor that we don't have a clue as to where this stuff is/has gone. That concerns me.

The Left's position that Bush and Blair lied/manipulated intelligence is extremely lame because they'd then have known there were no such weapons and that they'd ultimately pay a tremendous political price when that became obvious.

Believing Bush and Blair lied about WMD is like believing Hillary! was shocked (shocked!, I tell you) to learn about the Bent One and "that woman, Ms. Lewinsky."

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